


tell me, will it warm you in your grave?

by saintazula



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Angst, Gen, POV Azula (Avatar), azula day, god i love her so much its unreal, literally made myself sad and for what, tidbits of azulas life from her perspective
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-03
Updated: 2020-10-03
Packaged: 2021-03-08 05:00:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 888
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26790106
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/saintazula/pseuds/saintazula
Summary: Firelord Azula, she repeats at night. Was there ever a sentence so perfect?
Relationships: Azula & Zuko (Avatar)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 34





	tell me, will it warm you in your grave?

**Author's Note:**

> TW for mentions of child abuse 
> 
> this is in NO WAY meant to be anti ursa. we the audience know exactly what kind of position she was in and what ozai was doing. azula did not. and we also know exactly how she thought ursa saw her ('my own mother, thought i was a monster')
> 
> warning for heinous overuse of parenthesis, commas, and fragment sentences bc i like them <3

Azula knows she is talented. She is a prodigy. Azula knows that more likely than not after her father dies she’ll take his title. Her brother may be the eldest but it was never meant to be his. It’s hers, from her first gasping breath in this world, it’s been hers. 

( _Firelord Azula_ , she repeats at night. _Was there ever a sentence so perfect?_ ) 

+

It is strange growing up knowing her mother thought she was a monster. That no matter how good Azula was, no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t do right in her mother’s eyes. It was always _Zuzu_ who was the apple of her eye. Zuko and his soft heart. Zuko and his lukewarm fire. Zuko and all his _weakness_ and she loved him more anyway. 

(If the echo of her mother whispering, _what is wrong with that child,_ mocks her at night it is no one’s business but her own. She is future Firelord Azula, and her people will love her enough to drown out the sound.)

+

Azula can’t exactly pinpoint when her fire turned blue, but she knows it wasn’t long after Ursa left. 

Ozai was a bit harsher in their sparring sessions after she fled. But it was no matter. She adapted, as she always has. As she always will. She is future Firelord Azula, and a few strikes from her father can’t strip her of that. Nothing can strip her of that. 

So she worked harder and harder. Gave more and more. Until all she was, was her fire. Until the flames consumed her whole. Only once there was nothing left of her but the fire burning beneath her skin, did the red turn to blue. 

( _Firelord Azula,_ she whispers at night, when she can’t shake the ghost of father’s fire searing her flesh. _Firelord Azula._ It’s a cold comfort, she admits. But sometimes the burn of the cold is kinder than that of fire.)

+

When Zuko is banished and sent on a mission no one expects him to ever be able to complete, she is not shocked. He is weak. He’ll always be weak. There is no room for imperfection in the Fire Nation, he never understood that, and he never will. How can he? He wasn’t born for the crown, not like she was. 

She pities him. Poor Zuzu. 

(Only when the sun has dipped below the horizon does she admit to the jealousy festering in her gut and dripping from her tongue. A bitter ugly poison has taken root deep in her stomach. Iroh wasted no time in volunteering to accompany his nephew on his impossible mission. He always loved Zuko, far more than he loved her. She thinks of the doll he gave her, she thinks of the ashes that was left of it once she burned it to nothing.

 _Firelord Azula,_ she whispers to herself, _Firelord Azula._ It does not comfort her like it usually does. So she repeats it, again and again. Until the words mean nothing. Until they’re all that’s left.)

+

Ty Lee and Mai’s betrayal was unexpected. 

She thinks of Mai saying she loved Zuko more than she feared Azula and she sees the ghost of her mother saying the exact same thing. 

She laughs because if she doesn’t, she’ll cry. And crying is a weakness a future Firelord can not partake in. 

(But spirits she wants to. She wants to cry so hard she heaves. She wants to tear her hair from her scalp. She wants to scream and scream and scream and never stop. 

But mostly she wants to ask: _What is it about Zuko? What makes him so easy to love? Tell me, tell me, tell me. Please, tell me. Please._

But she doesn’t, instead, she just whispers into the stagnant, humid night air, _Firelord Azula._ But there is no comfort in it, not even a cold one. _Firelord Azula. Firelord Azula. Firelord Azula. Firelord Azula....)_

_+_

Her father gives her the title of Firelord. 

She does not feel as she expected to feel. She’s still cold. The crown doesn’t warm her like she always imagined it would. 

She wants to scream. Or maybe cry. Perhaps both. 

(She does neither. Instead, she whispers, _Firelord Azula,_ more out of habit than anything else.) 

_+_

She loses the Agni Kai to the waterbender. 

_Katara_ , is what Zuko calls the girl when he comes to visit Azula down in the dungeons. 

He is now Firelord Zuko. The people love him. 

(They love him. Of course, they do. Who doesn’t _love_ Zuzu?)

She shivers in her cell. So hard that her teeth clack and the sound echos down the stone walls. There is no title to comfort her anymore. To warm the chill her bones. She has lost. She has lost. She has lost.

First, she screams. She screams and screams and screams until she tastes blood on her tongue and her voice is a hoarse whisper. Then she cries until she heaves. After that, she waits in silence until she sees the sun set from the small window in her cage.

( _Firelord Azula,_ she starts to whisper. But she stops herself. 

_Azula,_ she forces herself to say instead. _Just Azula._

She laughs. Her throat is so raw from screaming that it hurts, like razor blades clawing up her throat. 

_Is this all that's left?_ _)_

  
  
  



End file.
